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Monday, 13 August 2012

Configuring IP Pools in VMware vSphere

Configuring IP Pools in VMware vSphere

IP Pools, as you might have guessed, are pools of IP addresses that you
can associate with vSwitch port groups. They essentially act as Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers to assign IP addresses from
the pool to a VM, so essentially the vCenter Server is acting as a DHCP
server.

When you configure an IP Pool you specify a range of either IPv4
or IPv6 addresses, DNS and proxy settings, and finally select which
vSwitch port groups that the pool will be available to.

IP pools provide a network identity to vApps. An IP pool is a network
configuration that is assigned to a network used by a vApp. The vApp can
then leverage vCenter Server to automatically provide an IP
configuration to its virtual machines.

To Set up the IP Pool:

Go to HOME >> INVENTORY >> NETWORKING

Select the Distributed Virtual Switch as shown

Right-Click on it and select "New Port Group"

Provide the name, number of ports and vLAN Type for your Port Group

Review your settings and click Finish when done

Once you have created your Port Group, we now create the IP Pools

To do so, select the Datacenter (in this case, its named SEEPZ) and browse for the IPPools Tab.

Select Add to add a new IP Pool

Enter a name for the IP Pool. (For example, vCenterOps IP Pool.)

Enter the subnet (not the subnet mask) that the vCenter Server resides on.

Enter the subnet mask as a bit. (For example, a mask of 255.255.255.0 is equivalent to a /24 network.)

(Optional) Enter a comma-separated list of host address ranges in the Ranges field.A range consists of an IP address, a pound sign (#), and a number indicating the length of the range. The gateway and the ranges must be within the subnet, but must exclude the gateway address.For example, 10.20.60.4#10, 10.20.61.0#2 indicates that the IPv4 addresses can range from 10.20.60.4 to 10.209.60.13 and 10.20.61.0 to 10.20.61.1

Click OK.

In the Properties dialog box, select the Associations tab.Select the networks that use this IP pool.Click OK.

Once you have an IP Pool configured, you can assign it to a vApp by
editing its properties and changing the IP Allocation Policy from Fixed
to Transient.